Late on the first Sunday night of February, our city erupted with joy after the Chiefs won the Super Bowl, and people filled the streets with celebration. My boyfriend and I had spent the evening at some friends’ on the other side of Midtown; driving home down 39th street from State Line Read More...
This week we have been bombarded with numbers. Numbers of absentee ballots, of electoral college votes, of new covid cases, percentage of positive test rates. We are swimming in a sea of numbers and statistics and trying to make meaning of it all. Sometimes the numbers are overwhelming and sometimes they are Read More...
“In his holy flirtation with the world, God occasionally drops a pocket handkerchief. These handkerchiefs are called saints.” - Frederick Buechner I’m grateful to my colleague, Rev. Joe Walker, who had the idea this year that we should really pause to honor the saints. It got me to thinking about who has been Read More...
I met Father Ed Hayes 25 years ago when he was directing a retreat center in rural Kansas. Ed had this grandfatherly way of bringing people together from many different spiritual perspectives. He was equally at home at the head of the long oak dinner table and at the chapel’s communion table where he Read More...
It occurs to me that some of you reading this do not have a personal memory of September 11, 2001, and the events known as 9/11. You may not have been born yet or were too young to have memories of that fateful day. Suffice to say that the attacks on our soil were horrific and heartbreaking.
By Spring 1919, the flu pandemic had claimed 2,300 souls from Kansas City’s population of 250,000, leaving us one of the hardest hit cities in America. In November of that same year, a missionary sent to our city by the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) began meeting in homes with those Disciples Read More...
Our board chair, Tepring Crocker was in my office. When we finished our board business, she bounded out with glee remarking, “I get to go sing now. It will be the first time I’ve sung with other people outside of my family in many months.” Our Director of Music, Matt Thompson, had figured Read More...
“Not in my lifetime has there been a spectacle which has so depressed me. One wonders how long the free society can endure degradation of the office of president in campaigns such as this. The intensity of feeling is going to leave us with a first class national headache on November 4. Read More...
By Rev. Tyler Heston This year, we have become adept at finding new ways to be community. Through outdoor events with neighbors and friends to fresh forms of fun through video calls and online activities, we have been reminded about how important it is to keep up with the people we love Read More...
By Lisa McCleish, Director of Early Childhood Programs Last March, the Parents’ Day Out and Preschool Program left on a Friday, ready for a week spring break, and didn’t re-open until June 1, over 10 weeks later. COVID. Admittedly, the staff were unprepared to be closed due to a pandemic. Like every Read More...
“If you do something really great out in the wilderness, no one will clap for you,” she said with a gentle smile and a enthusiastic staccato in her voice. She was young, 20 something, and had earned a degree in art and wilderness therapy. I had heard of art therapy and music Read More...
On Tuesday night, 96 of us gathered for the annual “State of the Church.” About 35 of us gathered in the back yard under the tent and later more than 60 of us gathered via Zoom. One person wrote to me and said it was the best one we had ever had. I have a Read More...
I listened to an interview with author and professor, George Saunders. In the interview he shared about the time he went incognito in a homeless shelter in Fresno, California. There he met a wise older man from Guatemala who kept saying “Everything is always keep changing.” Professor Saunders says that truer words Read More...
Deep and Wide Deep and Wide There’s a fountain flowing deep and wide. Thirty-two years ago was my first official day on the job at Country Club Christian Church. I could not have imagined then the depth and width I would experience inside the contours of this beloved congregation. I did not Read More...
A friend recently asked me how I make time to read so much. I laughed because I never feel like I find enough time to read. When the pandemic broke out I thought it would be a perfect time to read more, with fewer night meetings and social engagements. But I found Read More...
